13 Feb 2018
Booking.com Response
8yHi and thanks for your review, whilst I am disappointed in some of the things you have said, I welcome your feedback. As you are from within the product organisation, you will know that we have recently completed a pulse survey across your team to see how you and your colleagues are feeling and flush out some of these issues. For example, we know that there has been some noise around the brand new competency framework and career paths that we have launched (which you have referred to). To be honest, this is the first time we have had the clarity of this structure and the aim is to provide more transparency and more opportunity for people to develop their careers and understand their development areas. This is in fact the absolute opposite of promotions based on promises and prayers! I think the structure and process is good and will actually alleviate many of the concerns you have raised.
Having said the above, I would also say it is true that this year we have really mucked up the communication around this process. The intent was nothing but good, but we did not do a good enough job across the team of explaining what was happening and how it was working. I can only apologise for this and assure you that we have recognised this and already held a retrospective to see what we can learn and how we can do it better going forward. As I say I think the actual framework and process is good. So we will fix that.
This weekend, I shall be reading the results of the pulse survey and over the next couple of weeks, will be working with the Product team leadership and you will see the results but more importantly what we have planned to respond. I would welcome your thoughts once we've done that.
I do agree that learning and development has really moved forward this year and I hope you enjoy the LinkedIn learning platform that we launched yesterday. My aspiration is that we can show you that we are a great place to work. All the best Ryan